Del.icio.us Rebrands as Delicious.com: A Lesson for Entrepreneurs
Friday, August 1st, 2008
Awkward domain name slowed growth of site.
Social bookmarking site Delicious has flipped the switch on its brand, encouraging users to visit the easy-to-remember Delicious.com instead of the often typod del.icio.us.
On its blog, the site wrote:
So why did we switch to delicious.com? We’ve seen a zillion different confusions and misspellings of “del.icio.us” over the years (for example, “de.licio.us”, “del.icio.us.com”, and “del.licio.us”), so moving to delicious.com will make it easier for people to find the site and share it with their friends.
Since the Delicious site started as a hobby, founder Joshua Schachter can be forgiven for not using a good domain name. But adding all those dots? He could have picked up an easy-to-remember and easy-to-spell domain name for the cost of a domain registration.
In fact, way back in 2004 he talked about the naming mistake:
I somewhat regret using the domain name, because it’s almost impossible to discuss or verify without sounding silly. I’ll probably have to rename it at some point, presumably as something ending in -ster or -zilla or whatever.
Sadly, a number of web 2.0 entrepreneurs saw the success of del.icio.us and thought it would be cool to create domain hacks themselves, resulting in poorly chosen domain names that sent plenty of traffic to the wrong place.
The company, now a part of Yahoo, acquired Delicious.com in 2005.
Tags: company naming, del.icio.us, delicious.com
[...] No obstante, investigando un poco más leo por ahí que el dominio fue adquirido en 2005. [...]
LOL I guess word got back to Del.icio.us that Delicious.com was getting slammed by direct navigation traffic meant for them.
Great move for Delicious. More and more companies now are understanding the importance of the right URL for their business. I will not be surprised that those ending in misspelling like “kr” (e.g. Flickr etc) will try to get the “right spelling” domain and will use them prominently either redirect them to their site or use them as their main site.
Simple logic: When the domain is mentioned in the news or radio, first time hearers will likely type the normal spelling of the domain the person heard. If they use misspelled domains, they will not know the traffic they are losing.
Obviously this was a great branding move that will no doubt help stop the traffic bleed from typos.
While they are on the branding bandwagon, a name like bookmarks.com also comes to mind for another way of getting and keeping visitors on the site.
Good work!!
Sean Stafford
[...] Domain Name Wire: Social bookmarking site Delicious has flipped the switch on its brand, encouraging users to visit [...]
“I will not be surprised that those ending in misspelling like “kr” (e.g. Flickr etc) will try to get the “right spelling” domain…”
Yes, but will they try and buy it or take it away via UDRP?
Patrick
anyone know what was paid for Delicious.com ??
~DomainBELL (Patricia)
Patricia, $100k according to a comment a year ago @ http://www.mappingtheweb.com/2007/05/03/flickercom-for-sale/
Andrew,
Another fantastic domain industry news article. Every single report of a company understanding the value of a domain name for marketing their website and prodserv is another inch we domainers move upward in our crawl towards total recognition in the traditional business sector.
Excellent report. I hate you.
your buddy,
Stephen Douglas
Successclick.com
[...] mis sitios] Isabel Vázquez Del.icio.us cambia a Delicious.comDelicious.com es el dominio que Del.icio.us ha decidio utilizar como principal en lugar de este, que redirecciona ahora hacia el .com. Este dominio fue adquirido por la empresa (parte de Yahoo) [...]
[...] this topic in the first place was DomainNameWire.com’s posting yesterday entitled, “Del.icio.us Rebrands as Delicious.com: A Lesson for Entrepreneurs“. Delicious (formerly known as Del.icio.us) intentionally used ‘dots’ to [...]
Typo traffic will never convert into sales. Much of the revenue generated are the users frantically clicking away at the link ads to * get away * from the typo page.
When I look up the traffic origination, many of these typo sites get the most traffic from the US. Too lazy to even use search or simply unaware of how the net works? can we assume the new generation who know their way around the internet are not part of the type-in traffic.
Subdomains have never been popular anyway in America though I understand they are used more in other parts of the world. Splitting a domain name into three parts separated by two dots, i.e. del.icio.us, always looked like a bad branding decision.